Knoll frustrated by exclusion from committees By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF 3 · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, November 5, 2009 Ward 5 councillor accuses council of violating rules "The motion by Councillor (Ralph) Robinson, which I am just flabbergasted by, exclusively eliminates my name from any potential committee." Councillor Jeff Knoll Ward 5 Ward 5 Councillor Jeff Knoll said he is disgusted with the actions of council, which he feels purposely excluded him from committee appointments during Monday night's council meeting. A motion, put forward during the meeting by Ward 1 Councillor Ralph Robinson, assigned councillors to a variety of committees and boards for a term of service beginning on Dec. 1, 2009 and ending on Nov. 30, 2010. Knoll was not recommended for any of these positions, despite expressing interest in being appointed to seven of them. "Of those nominations, not a single one includes my name and I find that offensive and just basically not fair. The process of council appointments has always been structured as such that we try to find a fair balance of council representation on the various committees and not weighting it towards particular members of council and not excluding particular members of council," a clearly frustrated Knoll said during the meeting. "The motion by Councillor Robinson, which I am just flabbergasted by, exclusively eliminates my name from any potential committee." Despite Knoll's protests, council passed the appointment selection with only Knoll, Ward 5 Councillor Marc Grant and Ward 3 Councillor Mary Chapin voting against it. Following the meeting, Knoll noted that this is the third year in a row he has been kept out of all committees and boards with the exception of the Administrative Services Committee, the Budget Committee and the Uptown Core Committee, where his presence is mandatory. He also said that he believes exclusion from the committees is council's way of punishing him for not going along with council on certain issues. "I acknowledge the fact that I am not the most loved councillor by a certain subset of council. I endorsed the previous mayor and I don't simply blindly sit there and vote on things. I'll often raise issues and sometimes argue and win against the common wisdom of the day, whether it's transit fare increases or what have you," said Knoll. "In my mind, that is supposed to be the traditional role of the councillor. You are supposed to go in and argue and everybody is sup- posed to have the best interests of the community at heart. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I am to be punished and every time we come up for appointments, I ask for committees and I never get them. The whole thing was a setup to completely marginalize me from this aspect of council responsibility." Knoll said the distribution of optional committees among councillors is completely unfair, with Ward 4 Councillor Roger Lapworth and Ward 2 Councillor Cathy Duddeck each on seven committees and boards, while he is shut out and sitting on none -- despite wanting to. Knoll accused council of violating its own rules in that the Terms of Appointments, as listed under the Town's policies and procedures, state that committee appointments can only last for a maximum of two consecutive years to accommodate, where appropriate, such things as balanced representation and an equal opportunity for all members. Chapin also expressed concern about these longstanding appointments. "It was my understanding that we have a policy that says two years on one committee and, if someone else is interested after that, you move off. I've personally done that myself. I moved off the United Way and Library boards after sitting there for two years, I've been interested in being on the Site Plan Committee and I put my name in again for Library Board, but whoever made the decisions thought that I shouldn't be there," said Chapin. "It's very frustrating, actually, when you are just trying to gain broad experience and participate and do your share." All these problems Knoll places at the feet of Mayor Rob Burton, who he said has failed to maintain a fair process. "The mark of a good chair is to make sure that fair process is always maintained. Notwithstanding your own personal partisanships and loyalties and whatever, you are supposed to be a fair and impartial chair to everybody and part of that process is enforcing the Town rules and not deciding that some are to be enforced and some are not to be enforced," said Knoll. "One of those rules is the two years and you're out rule. It's not enforced and the reason it's not enforced is because there is a certain subset of councillors who are trying to control all of the committees." Burton responded to Knoll's comments, noting that councillors who have distinguished themselves within their committee appointments are being allowed to continue the good work they are doing. "Over the years, council has frequently determined to keep in place councillors when council is happy with their performance. Such a decision means council has effectively changed its rotation policy for that appointment, which is council's right," he said. "Councillor Knoll was afforded an opportunity to contest the appointments of any committee he wanted, in full accordance with our rules of procedure. He responded as you saw instead of moving any motion to separate or change council's decision. I'm sorry he failed to offer any alternative, because we can't know how it would have turned out." Knoll said he did not challenge the manner in which the motion was brought forward because he knew he did not have the votes to win, some- thing he was shown in a challenge last year. Robinson, who brought the appointment motion forward, noted he did not purposefully exclude Knoll from the committees, but made his selection process strictly based on which councillor was best for the various jobs. "Jeff was certainly capable of doing the job, but I just went through this list and thought to myself, `Well here's this one, I know them all pretty well' and I just thought they would be a more appropriate fit given all the circumstances," said Robinson. "It wasn't my idea of any form of punishment when I came up with that motion. He's a good man." Knoll said he can do his job without being on these committees, but points out not being there does make his job harder and presents the residents of Ward 5 with a disadvantage because their councillor is not front and centre to hear about the issues discussed at these committees. "The way this committee structure works is you are supposed to have a fair and balanced representation of members of council, so that we have that involvement, so we can bring the council perspective to the committee table, and we can bring the perspective of the committee back to council," said Knoll. "That helps from a communications point of view. It helps from an educational point of view for the councillor to understand more about the committees that we are making decisions on and voting on budgets for, etc. It is an important part of our job." 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